Jim Mollen was one of the founding board members of Orphanage Outreach. At the time, he was working for the Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta. He put together the first Orphanage Outreach web site. He was a favorite of the kids at the orphanage, and made numerous trips to the Dominican Republic to work with them. Jim left Coca-Cola in 2002 to accept a position with the U.S. State Department. There, he volunteered to work in Iraq toward reconstruction of the education system. He was the primary American liaison to the Iraqi Ministry of Education. He worked there for 16 months, and was due to come home on December 1, 2004. Tragically, he was killed by an assassin's bullet on November 24, 2004, a week before his planned departure.

In Jim's memory, his family and Orphanage Outreach established the Jim Mollen Memorial University Education Fund. The purpose of the fund is to provide funding for university education to children from the orphanage. Because our mission is to provide opportunities for orphaned, abandoned, and disadvantaged children, the university program is the pinnacle of the opportunities we can offer these children. Currently, four young women from the Monte Cristi orphanage are enrolled in the university program. The cost is about $1000/month/student, to cover all their housing, food, transportation, supplies, tuition, medical,